From Russia to the Riviera: My 50-hour, 2000-mile rail odyssey from Moscow to Nice

A friend who knew of my railophilia emailed me, urging me to 'check out this link'.

One click later, I was on a Russian Railways webpage that proudly proclaimed the launch of Europe's longest continuous train journey: 50 hours, 2,000 miles from Moscow to Nice.

A year on, and I'm standing at Moscow's Belorussky station, pulling my scarf tight against the chill and attempting to translate the Cyrillic script on the departure board.

On a roll: Petroc poses next to the train with (occasionally smiling) stewardess Elena

Eventually, I find my train. Stretched out along Platform 3 are the nine carriages of the Nice express, grey with red trim, destination boards illustrated with the national birds of Russia and France.

In the days of the tsars, aristocratic Russians used luxury trains to reach their summer residences on the Riviera. Now the South of France is popular with a new generation of Russian rich.

I use the hours before my 5.21pm departure to visit the famous Tretyakov museum. I look at mournful paintings of country dachas, portraits of famous writers and composers, and a fair few Mediterranean scenes. From the museum, a walk across the river, through Red Square and past the newly refurbished Bolshoi Theatre took me to Yeliseyevsky Gastronom, an elegant 19th Century food hall with gilded ceilings that somehow survived the Soviet years and is now filled with gourmet products.

I have a dim memory of reading that passengers were recommended to take their own food on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Worried about going hungry, I buy cheese, fruit, chocolate and a tin of what I think is cheap caviar.

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Just as well the high prices stop me from splurging. On board the train, Elena, the carriage provodnitsa, or stewardess, shows me the smart restaurant car. She demonstrates the fold-down bed in my compartment, with crisp white linen, and opens a side door to reveal a bathroom with shower as well as basin and lavatory. Elena doesn't exactly smile, but I can feel there is warmth somewhere.

Minutes later, we are rolling out of Moscow in the smudgy dusk, passing commuter stations, abandoned factories, the smoking boiler towers of the city's communal hot water system.

As city turns to suburbia, and then empty countryside, I set off to explore the dining car. Half a dozen passengers are already tucking into dinner, while the bar attendant is doing a roaring trade in dispensing decanters of vodka.

I take one back to my compartment and open the caviar, only to discover it's actually tinned sturgeon fillet. Thankfully, the restaurant has salmon caviar, along with Russian soups, pork with prunes, stuffed chicken and fresh steak. There's also a reasonable wine list, a bottle of Liebfraumilch delightfully translated as 'milk of the beloved women'.

The only evidence we have left Russia
is a text message on my mobile saying 'Welcome to Belarus'. Intrigued
by what I have read of the authoritarian Belarusian regime, I'm
desperate to see something of the capital, Minsk. Alas, we stop for just
three minutes.

At about 4.30am we reach Brest, a
railway town on the Belarus-Poland border. Two blond immigration
officers, wearing green uniforms and, rather incongruously, pixie boots,
demand my papers. Then the train rolls into a vast shed, where the
carriages are separated. I am transfixed as burly men and women replace
the wheels, ready for the narrower gauge of Western Europe.

From here: The train sets off on its 2000-mile expedition from the grand city of Moscow

Sunshine pouring through the windows wakes me. We are well into Poland. Elena makes coffee in the lounge area of the carriage. She is from Rostoff, she tells me. A young couple bound for a holiday in San Remo, and a mother and her young son alighting in Vienna, are my fellow passengers in the luxury-class carriage.

Exploring the length of the train, through first and second class, I find a few families, traders with compartments crammed with goods, and older couples taking advantage of reduced fares. And, pleasingly, no other British travellers. I have to stop myself fantasising that I've wandered into a John le Carré novel.

Overnight, the Russian dining car has gone, replaced by a Polish Railways carriage staffed by cheery young waiters.

Delicious scrambled eggs, cold meats and cheeses are served for breakfast shortly after Warsaw.

Eighteen hours in and I'm enjoying a sensation of powerlessness. The only option is to eat, drink, read and gaze out of the window.

A few locals photograph the train as we pass through Katowice, with its elegant market square and Germanic town hall. Later we stop for 20 minutes at a rural halt, giving the chance for a stroll and some fresh air. A Czech engine is attached for a few hours, then an Austrian one.

Dinner as we leave Vienna: warm camembert with salad, pork schnitzel, a Sicilian wine. Alas, the train crosses the Brenner Pass overnight and a new moon does little to illuminate the scene. At dawn, we are in Italy, vineyards rolling away from the track, low cloud lying in ridges halfway up Alpine mountains.

Just after Verona, a glimpse of Lake Garda. At Milan, the station cafe has become a McDonald's. Shortly after Genoa, the railway tracks swing to the right, and the shining Mediterranean stretches out ahead.

Many passengers have already disembarked; the crew are preparing for journey's end. I run into a stewardess, hairdryer in hand.

At Ventimiglia, near the French border, two Italian carabinieri, wearing medals, inspect the train, out of interest rather than duty. A giant SNCF locomotive is attached to pull the final miles.

At Menton, the French gendarmerie are less well styled. We pass through Monte Carlo, and then the view of the sea is blocked by the green-shuttered apartment buildings of Nice.

It's nearly 6pm: we've travelled through seven countries, but our arrival at the grand, barrel-roofed station is perfectly on time.

Elena finally breaks into a smile as she bids me farewell; the lads from the dining car are already halfway down the platform, ready to make the most of their break before the return journey.

It's a short walk down Rue Berlioz to Le Negresco, a grand old hotel on the Promenade des Anglais, the boulevard that runs along Nice's seafront. The hotel opened in 1913, soon becoming a refuge for White Russians fleeing the Revolution.

After two nights in a narrow bunk, the bed in my room seems almost obscene in its size, and I can't get to sleep, missing the roll and clackety-clack of the train.

To there: After 50 hours in transit, Petroc ended his journey at Le Negresco in Nice

Next day, the hotel's general manager tells me that last summer 80 per cent of his guests were Russian.

In the ballroom stands a bust of Alexander III, the penultimate tsar. And now the old express train route of imperial times runs again.

You could fly in four hours or so, but I can't think of a more exciting, romantic proposition than taking the railway from Mother Russia to the Cote d'Azur.

Travel Facts

During the summer, the Russian Railways Nice Express leaves Moscow on a Thursday morning, returning from Nice on Saturdays. Deluxe class costs from £1,002 one way, including breakfast and en suite shower. First class is from £432 and second class from £285. Book tickets via Rail Europe (0844 848 4070, www.raileurope.co.uk) or Real Russia (020 7100 4985, www.realrussia.co.uk).

British Midland International (www.flybmi.com) flies from Heathrow to Moscow from £262 return and British Airways (www.ba.com) flies from Nice to Heathrow from £51.30 one way.

Jailed, injured, scared - but I will be back

He was only acting as compere at a music festival in Bulawayo, but after being accused of visa violations, Petroc Trelawny was detained for six days and suffered a dislocated shoulder that needed hospital treatment after falling in a cell. Yet the experience has made Petroc, who left the country on June 1 after charges were dropped, even fonder of Zimbabwe.

I spent my 41st birthday under police guard in hospital in Bulawayo. Friends brought celebratory cakes; Happy Birthday was sung three times as new nurses and policemen came on shift.

After pleading with matron to relax visiting hours, my guests included Val Bell, the glamorous seventysomething director of the Bulawayo Publicity Association. 'Please find a way of telling people that despite this, Zimbabwe is a beautiful country that needs overseas visitors,' she said.

Val is based near Bulawayo's City Hall, where she finds hotels for a dwindling number of tourists, fixes day trips to the spectacular Matopos National Park and issues advice on finding a good steak. Her eyes narrowed before she asked: 'Will you come back?'

'Yes,' I answered. 'Without doubt.'

Until now, my most dramatic travel incident was when the night sleeper to Victoria Falls hit a herd of buffalo and was derailed. We ate fresh buffalo meat and finally made it to the Falls half a day late.

Six nights in custody was an entirely new experience, and not one I'd care to repeat. There were frightening moments - being told of a potential ten-year jail sentence; days of uncertainty; painful hours waiting for my dislocated shoulder to be treated.

But along with the bad came a unique insight into life in Zimbabwe: long conversations about its economic potential, a clearer understanding of its complex politics, tales of homesickness and racism encountered by siblings in the British Zimbabwean diaspora.

I had long conversations with a nurse who wants to go to Bible College; policemen told me of the best places to go for beer; I talked with doctors about the seemingly innate musical ability of Zimbabwean children.

As you read this, I hope I'll be back in Africa - Zambia this time, on a trip following in the last footsteps of that great explorer David Livingstone.

When I got back to London just over a week ago, I wondered if I'd want to return so soon to sub-Saharan Africa. The grey, wet Jubilee weekend soon had me confirming my flights.

My unexpected extra week in Zimbabwe has taught me many things - the value of small acts of kindness, the importance of making sure visa papers are in order - but it has in no way dampened my desire to travel.